act making specific levies and collections of taxes for specific
appropriations.

"Another source of profligacy in the expenditure of funds was the
law that provided for and empowered the levying and collecting of
special taxes by school districts, in the name of the schools. We
saw its evil and by a constitutional amendment provided that there
should only be levied and collected annually a tax of two mills for
school purposes, and took away from the school districts the power
to levy and to collect taxes of any kind. By this act we cured the
evils that had been inflicted upon us in the name of the schools,
settled the public school question for all time to come, and
established the system upon an honest, financial basis.

"Next, we learned during the period from 1869 to 1874, inclusive,
that what was denominated the floating indebtedness, covering the
printing schemes and other indefinite expenditures, amounted to
nearly $2,000,000. A conference was called of the leading Negro
representatives in the two houses together with the State
Treasurer, also a Negro. After this conference we passed an act for
the purpose of ascertaining the bona fide floating debt and found
that it did not amount to more than $250,000 for the four years; we
created a commission to sift that indebtedness and to scale it.
Hence when the Democratic party came into power they found the
floating debt covering the legislative and all other expenditures,
fixed at the certain sum of $250,000. This same class of Negro
legislators led by the State Treasurer, Mr. F. L. Cardoza, knowing
that there were millions of fraudulent bonds charged against the
credit of the state, passed another act to ascertain the true
bonded indebtedness, and to provide for its settlement. Under this
law, at one sweep, those entrusted with the power to do so, through
Negro legislators, stamped six millions of bonds, denominated as
conversion bonds, "fraudulent." The commission did not finish its
work before 1876. In that year, when the Hampton government came
into power, there were still to be examined into and settled under
the terms of the act passed by us providing for the legitimate
bonded indebtedness of the state, a little over two and a half
million dollars worth of bonds and coupons which had not be